Starlight
by Zagzagael
Summary: Beginning S1. Opie is out of jail, Jax is in over his head. Jax/Opie


He knew when it had begun, could roughly place his finger on the spot. But he had no idea where it would end. At that exact moment his heart was trip hammering because of where it was all heading, right then right there.

Another shot, the bar had five shot glasses lined up and the bottle was being drawn messily across the tops of each, a magic wand that spelled certain disaster. He recognized this but was helpless to stop it.

They were still laughing, jibing one another, taunting with shots slammed home, glasses slammed down; the edges all deliciously soft now. Whiskey dulled but through the haze of it Jax could still see Opie as sharp as the edge of a straight razor. At least he thought he could. He reached out a hand to check and sure enough, there was Opie's shoulder, the side of his neck, his ear. He fed a fingertip into Opie's ear and Opie pressed the side of his head into Jax's hand.

He dropped his hand away, quickly but reluctantly.

"Drunk as lords, boys!" Tig announced and Jax looked up and Tig was, of course, looking right at him, gaze shifting to the vicinity of Opie's ear then back to Jax's eyes. Jax bulldogged him back and Tig actually smirked.

"Jay-sus," Jax muttered. "Gotta see a man 'bout a horse…" He pushed off the bar, dropping his booted feet from the rung of the stool and staggered towards the back door of the clubhouse. Outside the night air - or was it technically morning now? - was still hot on the skin, getting on towards late summer but the day had been brutal with heat. He put one hand out and steadied himself on the chain link and pushed the jeans off his thin hips, relishing the scrape and burn over the top of his half-hard dick. He pissed, relieved as it cleared his mind, the spin of his head. His aim keeping his thoughts occupied. He had to unbuckle his belt and the top button of his fly to pull the jeans back up and he was done with that and leaned his face into the fence breathing hard and wondering what the fuck, what the mother-loving fuck.

Opie was back. Thanks to Jax. He was out of the cooler and thick in the blazing heat of the club. Donna was enraged, Opie torn, and Jax alternating between fury and despair hourly.

Five years had been like taking a boot to the solar plexus and now it was all behind them, time served, freedom earned and Jax felt like he was counting down days to his own dark sentence, guilty of a strange twist inside his gut, inside his mind. He could barely think for wanting this other man, could barely act for needing to feel this other man's presence. Donna was pissed, so fucken what. Wendy had just had their baby, so fucken what. Tara had returned to play sexy nurse to his sick child, and yeah, fuck that scene, too.

It was all about Opie, just Opie.

Something had shifted inside of him. Something that had started with the strangest feeling of pure lust, at a stop light, of all the most ridiculous things, a fucking intersection. They'd been riding abreast, the two of them, headed to a late breakfast, Opie in front and the light had turned red and Opie stopped and Jax stopped and rolled up behind him, to the hard right. Opie's boot came down on the tarmac, the huge heavy matte black bike leaning into his right leg, Opies thick thigh muscle flexing beneath the taut jean fabric as he held the bike up and Jax saw all of this; familiar to him as his own foot on the ground, his own thigh muscle tensed with the balancing weight of it all and without warning, without precedent, hot lust coiled in his lower belly fast and slick, the lightning movement of the rattle snake, and whipped dangerous, then settled. And he felt this desire, as surprised as if he'd just been gut-shot with no warning, and he bent his head and looked at Opie, letting his hot gaze move up to the other man's hand, the handle in his fist, the tattooed forearm, up the length of that and across the impossibly broad shoulders and the ragged beard and as the light turned green and Opie lifted his foot back onto the peg the snake in Jax's belly flicked its buttoned tail and rattled its menacing warning and just that quickly he was rock hard. They rode on, the vibration of the bike between his legs singing that snake into a fury of every kind of desire until finally, at the next light, Jax had to press a hand into his crotch and insist to his body that it step the fuck off and at that intersection he kept his eyes locked to the light until he could close them and see flashing red spots on the insides of his lids; warning him but Jax had never really been one to be warned.

And that was just the beginning. The hyper awareness of his best friend, the masculine shape of him, the male posturing, the deep throated voice, the steady smoldering look when his eyes would lock on a thing. Jax began to pick bar fights just to watch Opie rise snarling from a poker game to defend him and he began to get wildly inconceivably drunk at every opportunity just to step into Opie's space, lean against him, feel the arm come up around his shoulders and hold him fast and steady.

Donna and Wendy were unfortunate roadblocks, distractions. And this thing, this thing was coming down like a runaway freight train, even the sound of it roaring in his ears.

Just now there was another sound, softer, much softer, but ringing in his ears, a warning, an alarm, a calling home, it was the sound of Opie softly kicking the back door closed and closing the gap between the clubhouse and the section of fence currently holding him upright. He closed his eyes and waited. Opie moved into his space, unzipped and grunted as he began pissing through the chainlink. Silence stretched between them and Jax wanted to tumble into that space, just let go and fall. He knew without question that Opie would be there to catch him. He turned quickly, away from Opie, the single word on his lips falling like a prayer.

"Roof." And he was gone, to the ladder, up the rungs and then flat on his back, the sky spinning above him. And moments later, he heard Opie begin climbing. He smiled, too broad, but couldn't close his lips back over his teeth, he was actually panting.

He heard Opie laugh, a single low sound when he climbed over the cement edge of the roof and caught sight of him, spread-eagled to the stars and the moon. And then the big man was down on his back, beside Jax, and Jax shook his booted foot up against Opie's own boot and Opie knocked back.

"We done drinkin'?" Opie asked.

Jax nodded. "Yeah, think so, I should, gotta…drunk as hell."

"Okay then." Opie laughed and the sound rippled through Jax's ribcage, stuttering his heart. "Look at all them stars, huh."

"Mmmm…" He fished the crumpled pack of Camels out of his breast pocket and lipped the last one out and lit it. He dragged deep, filling his lungs with the smoke, hazing out his brain. Opie's hand came into view and he passed him the cig. "I feel like I could just reach up and grab one of them, ya know."

"A star?"

"Yeah. Remember that weekend –"

"- At Angel's Camp? You think I could forget that?

"What was it, ten years ago or something?"

Opie passed the smoke back and Jax felt the wet paper on his lips.

"Something like that. Never seen the stars like that. Not before and not since."

"They were, like, really real."

"Really real, bro?" Opie laughed again and Jax felt his eyelids flicker as the sound moved through him.

"Fucken real, my man."

"These stars fake?"

"Naw. It's me. I just don't feel the same, you know. Like, everything's just further away, harder to grab onto, to reach."

"Amen to that shit." Opie passed the butt-end back and Jax went up on one elbow, looked at the last of the cigarette and ground it out between thumb and finger. Opie was looking up at him, the sharp angles of his face catching starlight, his mouth a crooked hatchet mark in the dark beard, but even with his eyes black as the surrounding night, Jax knew he was looking at him hard. "Yeah, Jax?" Opie asked.

"Fuck this," he whispered and his body moved fast, leaving his mind to catch up, off his elbow, his free hand reaching for everything. For Opie's far shoulder, hooking him there, pulling him up and pressing himself down. And Opie was there, reaching back, pulling him down, fast and furious and full of urgency.

Jax moved himself, body and soul, through space. He could feel Opie beneath him, pressing upwards, pulling downwards, their mouths crashing, lips and tongue and teeth. His hands in Opie's hair, pulling hard. Opie followed suit and grabbed a handful of blond locks and would not let go.

Then a moment stilled, Opie wrapped him in his arms and Jax slid his own arms beneath the other man, around his shoulders, breaking a kiss, breathing hard.

"We gonna do this?"

"Yeah. Yeah, we are."


End file.
